Hope (?) and the day after

Some 72 hours ago a new government was sworn in. Since then, the nation has been awash with expectations and hope. Hope, they say, springs eternal in the human breast.

However, I was taken aback by one of the indices of our current euphoria. Specifically, I refer to a news item which contended that the euphoria in the land can be likened to the feeling which prevailed in the aftermath of our independence in 1960. I stopped short here. This is because independence was accompanied by joy. But beneath that joy were ominous signals as regards what the future held. Wole Soyinka appeared to have foreshadowed this situation when he was commissioned to write a play for the commemoration of our birth in 1960. Rather than ride on the positive mood of that time, he chose to come forth in very sombre terms. Hence, the play ‘Dance of the Forest’ was born.

But Soyinka was not alone as regards this dark mood. Very much the same thing could be said for a departing colonial officer, Ian Brook. In his book, significantly titled ‘The One-Eyed Man is King’, Brook took one look at the new post-colonial masters and declared that they would not take Nigeria to the Promised Land.

Therefore, as I look back to the sixties when much optimism abounded, just as now, I am tempted to be wary. Yes, wary is the word. This is because I remember very clearly those innocent years. Of course, I did not understand it all. Yet, I was part of it, in the sense that special meals were cooked for school children like me, who were just starting out in primary school. But shortly after 1960, something untoward started to happen.  The young mind took it in. Coming out of the wooden Redifussion box in my grandfather’s sitting room was a much-used word in those days: crisis. Specifically, we refer here to the 1962 crisis in the Action Group, which eventually culminated in the coup of 1966. And here, another word was added to my dictionary. Courtesy of that self-same Redifussion box, I heard the word ‘dissident’ for the first time. For those who do not know, this was one word which stood out in the statement used to announce the January 1966 coup. Again, the mind remembers it all clearly.

It was another era of hope. Hope in the sense that the civilians of the then old order, in the First Republic, had been overthrown. Chinua Achebe, another Nigerian writer, in his book ‘A Man of the People’ spoke about the disgust of the people as regards yesterdays’ rulers. And yet, the country trudged on. Subsequently, it virtually blundered into a civil war.

For those of us in Lagos, the brunt of the war was not felt by my generation. One can certainly not say the same thing for those who headed for Biafra. Indeed, the young mind vividly remembers an Atuonwu, the senior prefect (1967) in King’s College. He had to leave for Biafra. In measured tones, he announced his exit. Despite everything, he said, the old school tie would still hold if we meet on the battlefield.

Looking back here, it was easy to see how the hopes of 1960 had evaporated so quickly. Since then, the overall mood has been one of despair. In quick successions, Nigeria was passed from one military junta to the other. Perhaps the only perverse exception was the disastrous outing of the Shagari era. In other words, Nigerians and Nigeria were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, i.e., bankrupt civilian rule and rapacious military regimes.

The social forces which readily come to mind here are the duo of Babangida and Abacha. Between the two of them, some form of transformation occurred as regards nation-building. What they simply did was the opposite. The reader should not forget that in the case of Babangida particularly, there was a lot of cause for hope. And yet, at the end of the day, such hopes were dashed.

Much of the foregoing constitutes a backdrop to the 16-year rule of the People’s Democratic Party which was formally interrupted on Friday, May 29 by the Nigerian people. Within these 16 years, there were also flashes of hope. For instance, Obasanjo uttered the memorable statement which appeared to warm the hearts on his first coming as a civilian president. He said it would no longer be business as usual. At the end of the day, what really happened? We ended up with a Halliburton operative and a political adventurer who wanted to foist a third-term agenda on the rest of us.

Ultimately, Obasanjo succeeded in foisting on us a Yar’Adua who was rather too sick to oversee the affairs of the nation and so bowed to death. Then came Jonathan, who lived up to the billing of an accidental throw-up. But wholesome leadership is not accidental. It is contrived, deliberate and constructively created. This may well explain why Jonathan has turned out to be who he is as regards performance.

So, here we are again, this Monday morning. Will Buhari deliver? And do we dare to hope, in view of the long nights of broken promises? For now, I can only sigh.

Kayode Soremekun